US rulers exploit crisis in Venezuela as pretext to push attacks on Cuba

Vol. 83/No. 16 - April 22, 2019

Washington is using the ongoing economic crisis facing working people in Venezuela to further its main goal in the region — weakening the Cuban Revolution. The U.S. Treasury Department’s latest round of sanctions target two maritime companies and an oil…


Jim Spaul: 30 years building the communist movement

Vol. 83/No. 16 - April 22, 2019
Jim Spaul campaigning for the Communist League in Dalston during the 2015 general elections. March 31 meeting in London celebrated Spaul’s political life as a party leader and member of the National Union of Mineworkers. Spaul was “a party man,” speakers said.

LONDON — “Jim Spaul came to recognize more is needed to emancipate the working class than militant trade unionism, as important as that is,” Communist League Central Committee member Jonathan Silberman told a March 31 meeting here to celebrate 76-year-old…


Ukrainian rail workers rally for higher wages, better conditions

Vol. 83/No. 16 - April 22, 2019
Members of Free Trade Union of Railway Workers of Ukraine and union supporters march in Kiev March 19 for wage increase, pensions, medical care and protection against layoffs.

Some 500 rail workers, members of the Free Trade Union of Railway Workers of Ukraine (VPZU), and trade unionists from across the country picketed the central office of Ukrainian Railways in Kiev March 19. The union is demanding a wage…


Cuban health workers deliver aid to cyclone-hit Mozambique

Vol. 83/No. 16 - April 22, 2019
Cuban doctor treats patient in Mozambique after Henry Reeve brigade of health workers arrived to provide care to those injured and ill from devastating Cyclone Idai that hit March 14.

A brigade of 40 Cuban health workers have been in the coastal city of Beira, Mozambique, providing aid to those injured and ill in the wake of a devastating hit there by Cyclone Idai March 14. The storm wreaked havoc…


SWP candidate for State Assembly speaks at community meeting in NJ

Vol. 83/No. 16 - April 22, 2019
Inset, Lea Sherman, Socialist Workers Party candidate for New Jersey State Assembly, and Seth Galinsky, SWP candidate for New York City public advocate, speak at April 1 meeting of Regional Alliance of Students and Professionals at La Luz del Mundo church in Jersey City, New Jersey. Above, Sherman shows meeting participants Militant and Pathfinder books on working-class struggle.

JERSEY CITY, N.J. — Fifty people attended the April 1 meeting of the Regional Alliance of Students and Professionals to hear Lea Sherman, Socialist Workers Party candidate for New Jersey State Assembly, speak about her campaign. The meeting here, part…


Cease-fire can open political space in Israel and in Gaza

Vol. 83/No. 15 - April 15, 2019

A cease-fire agreement between the Israeli government and Hamas, the ruling Palestinian party in the Gaza Strip, was signed March 25, brokered by the Egyptian military-led government. It came after Hamas had fired rockets into Israel and Israel Defense Forces…



Two-year-long anti-Trump ‘Russia collusion’ witch hunt fizzles out

Vol. 83/No. 15 - April 15, 2019

For over two years since Donald Trump was elected president, the liberal media, Democratic Party and the middle-class left have been obsessed with finding a way to bring his administration down. They lionized Robert Mueller, a former head of the…


Ongoing trade rivalry between US and Chinese rulers ripples worldwide

Vol. 83/No. 15 - April 15, 2019

High-level negotiations continue in the yearlong trade dispute between Beijing and Washington with both governments reporting progress toward an agreement. Any short-term reset of trading relations would ease tensions, but won’t resolve the rivalry between the two biggest players in…


Iraq protests win firing of governor in ferry disaster

Vol. 83/No. 15 - April 15, 2019
Angry relatives of over 100 killed in sinking of ferry blocked road chanting “no to corruption” when Mosul’s governor arrived March 22. Victims had been celebrating New Year’s holiday.

Thousands took to the streets in the Iraqi city of Mosul March 22, the day after an overcrowded ferry capsized in the Tigris River, killing more than 100 people. “Our demand is the governor’s resignation,” a protester told Kurdistan 24…